Why Twelve Foot Ninja Say If You're Going To Be A Taste Maker You Can't Shovel Shit

A key component of eclectic Melbourne heavy rockers Twelve Foot Ninja's success has been endorsement by high profile industry figures. However, those who have actively championed the band - including progressive metallers Periphery, Fear Factory's Dino Cazares, Sevendust's Morgan Rose and Sirius XM DJ Jose Mangin - have seemingly often done so due to genuine fandom of both their music and unique sense of humour rather than being motivated by vested interest. This enhanced exposure has led to touring opportunities both here and abroad and meant their growth has largely felt organic, rather than the result of a calculated rock-radio campaign, for instance.

"It has an amazing effect when someone, I guess you could call those people trend-setters to a certain degree because they've reached critical mass," guitarist Steve "Stevic" MacKay enthuses. "They already have established audiences, and when they say they like something, it's powerful, people listen... That's what I'm always telling students (he teaches at the Australian College of the Arts) of marketing and advertising. It doesn't work any more, people are immune, and you're competing for people's attention, and those people don't care.

"That's what I'm always telling students of marketing and advertising. It doesn't work any more, people are immune, and you're competing for people's attention, and those people don't care."

"It comes down to creating good content, and you can't pull the wool over people's eyes with polishing turds any more. People try, but often the truth comes out. The most powerful thing is a peer recommendation, and that peer could just be some person on Facebook, or someone who promotes something that's not getting something out of it. That's when you listen to that stuff. I know I definitely check out films and things that I see people talking about, because it's an unbiased review, just catching it in the moment."

Second album Outlier is again being issued by small Sydney-based label Volkanik Music. Thus, there weren't outside forces compelling them to expedite the follow-up to 2012 debut full-length Silent Machine. "It was probably too long between drinks, but we honestly just wrote so many songs and had to whittle it down to the bunch that we had and could really get behind," the axeman says of their new record. "I suppose it's a bit of a curse when you're trying to do some experimental stuff and try different combinations, it doesn't always work. It reminds me of a bunch of scenes in sci-fi movies, it might have been Alien where you see all the aliens that didn't make it, and they're in glass tanks, they're like the deformed versions of the final article," he laughs. "We've got a bloody stadium full of those deformed foetus things in jars that just didn't get finished. And they won't, because they hit a point where we just went, 'nah, this thing sucks, let's move on'."

Although recipients of a few international magazine and radio accolades, Twelve Foot Ninja are the antithesis of pre-packaged major label rock fare. Look away, those who prefer their music easily compartmentalised. "It might be generated from a heavy riff, or it might actually be an acoustic song that we then produce in a way that becomes heavy," MacKay adds of the songwriting process. "That's what we did with a lot of the stuff from Outlier; we call it the acoustic guitar test. Every song can be translated to acoustic guitar and one voice and hold up. That's what we wanted, because we've sort of learnt that it can, a lot of progressive metal can lose its way a bit harmonically, it sort of becomes like percussion. If you played it on acoustic it would be just boring, because it's really about the rhythm. So I suppose that was one of the parameters that we set, 'is this a good song if you zoomed out and just played it on an acoustic?'

"I know I often have this urge to make something samba or go to reggae when it's meant to be serious metal."

"All the other stuff, it's more just tipping the hat to things we like to hear, we just sort of play what we want. Often it's like, 'that would be cool if that went there'. I know I often have this urge to make something samba or go to reggae when it's meant to be serious metal. It's fun to flip it on its head. That's heavily inspired by bands like Mr Bungle, King Crimson, Frank Zappa and John Zorn and all those dudes that have been doing that for decades."

The Music recounts the story of witnessing Twelve Foot Ninja open for Fear Factory in 2013. "Are these guys playing reggae or something?" one clearly confused punter quizzed his evidently unimpressed friend. "I love that reaction," MacKay responds. "It's polarising; some people like it, some people hate it. The analogy I think of is, if I said, 'I'm going to give you a sausage', and I actually handed you a banana instead. And if you ate the banana, you'd either spit it out going, 'this is the shittest sausage I've ever had', or you'd go, 'I think I like this. It's different to what I wanted, but it's okay'. That's sort of how a lot of the full-on metal dudes... If it's called metal, that's like saying it's a sausage. If you give them anything but a sausage they sometimes spit it out and say, 'that's fucking stupid'. Or they go, 'actually, it's cool. It's different'," he laughs, before apologising for the analogy.

There's an element of truth there, though - metal can be a rather insular and segregated world. MacKay says he's grateful the metallic community has embraced them overall, but doesn't wish to be pigeon-holed. "A lot of it's meant to be very aggressive, so the reggae or some of the more soulful stuff can feel... Not necessarily like that. It's a different vibe altogether. But that's why I love heaps of different styles of music. Going to a Fat Freddy's Drop gig, I'm having the best time. But then I love listening to Meshuggah, or hearing what Periphery are doing these days.

"It's just good to appreciate a range of things, and that's ultimately who we're appealing to, is people with a bit of an open mind. I guess that's what we appreciate the most is when people say, 'that reminds of this and that', and the things they've described are so opposite to each other. That's rewarding, it's like we're achieving our objective. I went through Silent Machine, because I'm weird, and went, 'how much of this is heavy?' And it was 60%. The other 40% was something completely different."

They'll have a first-hand opportunity to reach the metal and non-metal masses soon enough. Outlier's release will be followed by headline Australian shows, before they disappear to the US for major festivals in September and October, then return Down Under to open for US heavyweights Disturbed in enormodomes.

MacKay suggests they will approach the latter akin to playing in Mangin's basement. "It's the same sort of thing, just a bit more room for Damon (McKinnon, bass) to do his little twirls," he chuckles. "We're just going to go out and try and destroy it like it's our last show ever... It's an opportunity for us to get in front of a different audience. Of course they'll be people who are one-eyed Disturbed fans, and anything that's not Disturbed is just not what they want. It's also a band's job to try and win over those people."